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<html>
<head>
<title>pcreapi specification</title>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#00005A" link="#0066FF" alink="#3399FF" vlink="#2222BB">
<h1>pcreapi man page</h1>
<p>
Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>.
</p>
<p>
This page is part of the PCRE HTML documentation. It was generated automatically
from the original man page. If there is any nonsense in it, please consult the
man page, in case the conversion went wrong.
<br>
<ul>
<li><a name="TOC1" href="#SEC1">PCRE NATIVE API</a>
<li><a name="TOC2" href="#SEC2">PCRE API OVERVIEW</a>
<li><a name="TOC3" href="#SEC3">NEWLINES</a>
<li><a name="TOC4" href="#SEC4">MULTITHREADING</a>
<li><a name="TOC5" href="#SEC5">SAVING PRECOMPILED PATTERNS FOR LATER USE</a>
<li><a name="TOC6" href="#SEC6">CHECKING BUILD-TIME OPTIONS</a>
<li><a name="TOC7" href="#SEC7">COMPILING A PATTERN</a>
<li><a name="TOC8" href="#SEC8">COMPILATION ERROR CODES</a>
<li><a name="TOC9" href="#SEC9">STUDYING A PATTERN</a>
<li><a name="TOC10" href="#SEC10">LOCALE SUPPORT</a>
<li><a name="TOC11" href="#SEC11">INFORMATION ABOUT A PATTERN</a>
<li><a name="TOC12" href="#SEC12">OBSOLETE INFO FUNCTION</a>
<li><a name="TOC13" href="#SEC13">REFERENCE COUNTS</a>
<li><a name="TOC14" href="#SEC14">MATCHING A PATTERN: THE TRADITIONAL FUNCTION</a>
<li><a name="TOC15" href="#SEC15">EXTRACTING CAPTURED SUBSTRINGS BY NUMBER</a>
<li><a name="TOC16" href="#SEC16">EXTRACTING CAPTURED SUBSTRINGS BY NAME</a>
<li><a name="TOC17" href="#SEC17">DUPLICATE SUBPATTERN NAMES</a>
<li><a name="TOC18" href="#SEC18">FINDING ALL POSSIBLE MATCHES</a>
<li><a name="TOC19" href="#SEC19">MATCHING A PATTERN: THE ALTERNATIVE FUNCTION</a>
<li><a name="TOC20" href="#SEC20">SEE ALSO</a>
<li><a name="TOC21" href="#SEC21">AUTHOR</a>
<li><a name="TOC22" href="#SEC22">REVISION</a>
</ul>
<br><a name="SEC1" href="#TOC1">PCRE NATIVE API</a><br>
<P>
<b>#include <pcre.h></b>
</P>
<P>
<b>pcre *pcre_compile(const char *<i>pattern</i>, int <i>options</i>,</b>
<b>const char **<i>errptr</i>, int *<i>erroffset</i>,</b>
<b>const unsigned char *<i>tableptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>pcre *pcre_compile2(const char *<i>pattern</i>, int <i>options</i>,</b>
<b>int *<i>errorcodeptr</i>,</b>
<b>const char **<i>errptr</i>, int *<i>erroffset</i>,</b>
<b>const unsigned char *<i>tableptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>pcre_extra *pcre_study(const pcre *<i>code</i>, int <i>options</i>,</b>
<b>const char **<i>errptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_exec(const pcre *<i>code</i>, const pcre_extra *<i>extra</i>,</b>
<b>const char *<i>subject</i>, int <i>length</i>, int <i>startoffset</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>options</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>, int <i>ovecsize</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_dfa_exec(const pcre *<i>code</i>, const pcre_extra *<i>extra</i>,</b>
<b>const char *<i>subject</i>, int <i>length</i>, int <i>startoffset</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>options</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>, int <i>ovecsize</i>,</b>
<b>int *<i>workspace</i>, int <i>wscount</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_copy_named_substring(const pcre *<i>code</i>,</b>
<b>const char *<i>subject</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>stringcount</i>, const char *<i>stringname</i>,</b>
<b>char *<i>buffer</i>, int <i>buffersize</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_copy_substring(const char *<i>subject</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>stringcount</i>, int <i>stringnumber</i>, char *<i>buffer</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>buffersize</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_get_named_substring(const pcre *<i>code</i>,</b>
<b>const char *<i>subject</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>stringcount</i>, const char *<i>stringname</i>,</b>
<b>const char **<i>stringptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_get_stringnumber(const pcre *<i>code</i>,</b>
<b>const char *<i>name</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_get_stringtable_entries(const pcre *<i>code</i>,</b>
<b>const char *<i>name</i>, char **<i>first</i>, char **<i>last</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_get_substring(const char *<i>subject</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>stringcount</i>, int <i>stringnumber</i>,</b>
<b>const char **<i>stringptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_get_substring_list(const char *<i>subject</i>,</b>
<b>int *<i>ovector</i>, int <i>stringcount</i>, const char ***<i>listptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>void pcre_free_substring(const char *<i>stringptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>void pcre_free_substring_list(const char **<i>stringptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>const unsigned char *pcre_maketables(void);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_fullinfo(const pcre *<i>code</i>, const pcre_extra *<i>extra</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>what</i>, void *<i>where</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_info(const pcre *<i>code</i>, int *<i>optptr</i>, int</b>
<b>*<i>firstcharptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_refcount(pcre *<i>code</i>, int <i>adjust</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_config(int <i>what</i>, void *<i>where</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>char *pcre_version(void);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>void *(*pcre_malloc)(size_t);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>void (*pcre_free)(void *);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>void *(*pcre_stack_malloc)(size_t);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>void (*pcre_stack_free)(void *);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int (*pcre_callout)(pcre_callout_block *);</b>
</P>
<br><a name="SEC2" href="#TOC1">PCRE API OVERVIEW</a><br>
<P>
PCRE has its own native API, which is described in this document. There are
also some wrapper functions that correspond to the POSIX regular expression
API. These are described in the
<a href="pcreposix.html"><b>pcreposix</b></a>
documentation. Both of these APIs define a set of C function calls. A C++
wrapper is distributed with PCRE. It is documented in the
<a href="pcrecpp.html"><b>pcrecpp</b></a>
page.
</P>
<P>
The native API C function prototypes are defined in the header file
<b>pcre.h</b>, and on Unix systems the library itself is called <b>libpcre</b>.
It can normally be accessed by adding <b>-lpcre</b> to the command for linking
an application that uses PCRE. 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 of PCRE.
</P>
<P>
The functions <b>pcre_compile()</b>, <b>pcre_compile2()</b>, <b>pcre_study()</b>,
and <b>pcre_exec()</b> are used for compiling and matching regular expressions
in a Perl-compatible manner. A sample program that demonstrates the simplest
way of using them is provided in the file called <i>pcredemo.c</i> in the PCRE
source distribution. A listing of this program is given in the
<a href="pcredemo.html"><b>pcredemo</b></a>
documentation, and the
<a href="pcresample.html"><b>pcresample</b></a>
documentation describes how to compile and run it.
</P>
<P>
A second matching function, <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b>, which is not
Perl-compatible, is also provided. This uses a different algorithm for the
matching. The alternative algorithm finds all possible matches (at a given
point in the subject), and scans the subject just once (unless there are
lookbehind assertions). However, this algorithm does not return captured
substrings. A description of the two matching algorithms and their advantages
and disadvantages is given in the
<a href="pcrematching.html"><b>pcrematching</b></a>
documentation.
</P>
<P>
In addition to the main compiling and matching functions, there are convenience
functions for extracting captured substrings from a subject string that is
matched by <b>pcre_exec()</b>. They are:
<pre>
<b>pcre_copy_substring()</b>
<b>pcre_copy_named_substring()</b>
<b>pcre_get_substring()</b>
<b>pcre_get_named_substring()</b>
<b>pcre_get_substring_list()</b>
<b>pcre_get_stringnumber()</b>
<b>pcre_get_stringtable_entries()</b>
</pre>
<b>pcre_free_substring()</b> and <b>pcre_free_substring_list()</b> are also
provided, to free the memory used for extracted strings.
</P>
<P>
The function <b>pcre_maketables()</b> is used to build a set of character tables
in the current locale for passing to <b>pcre_compile()</b>, <b>pcre_exec()</b>,
or <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b>. This is an optional facility that is provided for
specialist use. Most commonly, no special tables are passed, in which case
internal tables that are generated when PCRE is built are used.
</P>
<P>
The function <b>pcre_fullinfo()</b> is used to find out information about a
compiled pattern; <b>pcre_info()</b> is an obsolete version that returns only
some of the available information, but is retained for backwards compatibility.
The function <b>pcre_version()</b> returns a pointer to a string containing the
version of PCRE and its date of release.
</P>
<P>
The function <b>pcre_refcount()</b> maintains a reference count in a data block
containing a compiled pattern. This is provided for the benefit of
object-oriented applications.
</P>
<P>
The global variables <b>pcre_malloc</b> and <b>pcre_free</b> initially contain
the entry points of the standard <b>malloc()</b> and <b>free()</b> 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.
</P>
<P>
The global variables <b>pcre_stack_malloc</b> and <b>pcre_stack_free</b> 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, when running the <b>pcre_exec()</b> function. See the
<a href="pcrebuild.html"><b>pcrebuild</b></a>
documentation for details of how to do this. It 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. There is a
discussion about PCRE's stack usage in the
<a href="pcrestack.html"><b>pcrestack</b></a>
documentation.
</P>
<P>
The global variable <b>pcre_callout</b> 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
<a href="pcrecallout.html"><b>pcrecallout</b></a>
documentation.
<a name="newlines"></a></P>
<br><a name="SEC3" href="#TOC1">NEWLINES</a><br>
<P>
PCRE supports five different conventions for indicating line breaks in
strings: a single CR (carriage return) character, a single LF (linefeed)
character, the two-character sequence CRLF, any of the three preceding, or any
Unicode newline sequence. The Unicode newline sequences are the three just
mentioned, plus the single characters VT (vertical tab, U+000B), FF (formfeed,
U+000C), NEL (next line, U+0085), LS (line separator, U+2028), and PS
(paragraph separator, U+2029).
</P>
<P>
Each of the first three conventions is used by at least one operating system as
its standard newline sequence. When PCRE is built, a default can be specified.
The default default is LF, which is the Unix standard. When PCRE is run, the
default can be overridden, either when a pattern is compiled, or when it is
matched.
</P>
<P>
At compile time, the newline convention can be specified by the <i>options</i>
argument of <b>pcre_compile()</b>, or it can be specified by special text at the
start of the pattern itself; this overrides any other settings. See the
<a href="pcrepattern.html"><b>pcrepattern</b></a>
page for details of the special character sequences.
</P>
<P>
In the PCRE documentation the word "newline" is used to mean "the character or
pair of characters that indicate a line break". The choice of newline
convention affects the handling of the dot, circumflex, and dollar
metacharacters, the handling of #-comments in /x mode, and, when CRLF is a
recognized line ending sequence, the match position advancement for a
non-anchored pattern. There is more detail about this in the
<a href="#execoptions">section on <b>pcre_exec()</b> options</a>
below.
</P>
<P>
The choice of newline convention does not affect the interpretation of
the \n or \r escape sequences, nor does it affect what \R matches, which is
controlled in a similar way, but by separate options.
</P>
<br><a name="SEC4" href="#TOC1">MULTITHREADING</a><br>
<P>
The PCRE functions can be used in multi-threading applications, with the
proviso that the memory management functions pointed to by <b>pcre_malloc</b>,
<b>pcre_free</b>, <b>pcre_stack_malloc</b>, and <b>pcre_stack_free</b>, and the
callout function pointed to by <b>pcre_callout</b>, are shared by all threads.
</P>
<P>
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.
</P>
<br><a name="SEC5" href="#TOC1">SAVING PRECOMPILED PATTERNS FOR LATER USE</a><br>
<P>
The compiled form of a regular expression can be saved and re-used at a later
time, possibly by a different program, and even on a host other than the one on
which it was compiled. Details are given in the
<a href="pcreprecompile.html"><b>pcreprecompile</b></a>
documentation. However, compiling a regular expression with one version of PCRE
for use with a different version is not guaranteed to work and may cause
crashes.
</P>
<br><a name="SEC6" href="#TOC1">CHECKING BUILD-TIME OPTIONS</a><br>
<P>
<b>int pcre_config(int <i>what</i>, void *<i>where</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
The function <b>pcre_config()</b> makes it possible for a PCRE client to
discover which optional features have been compiled into the PCRE library. The
<a href="pcrebuild.html"><b>pcrebuild</b></a>
documentation has more details about these optional features.
</P>
<P>
The first argument for <b>pcre_config()</b> 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:
<pre>
PCRE_CONFIG_UTF8
</pre>
The output is an integer that is set to one if UTF-8 support is available;
otherwise it is set to zero.
<pre>
PCRE_CONFIG_UNICODE_PROPERTIES
</pre>
The output is an integer that is set to one if support for Unicode character
properties is available; otherwise it is set to zero.
<pre>
PCRE_CONFIG_NEWLINE
</pre>
The output is an integer whose value specifies the default character sequence
that is recognized as meaning "newline". The four values that are supported
are: 10 for LF, 13 for CR, 3338 for CRLF, -2 for ANYCRLF, and -1 for ANY.
Though they are derived from ASCII, the same values are returned in EBCDIC
environments. The default should normally correspond to the standard sequence
for your operating system.
<pre>
PCRE_CONFIG_BSR
</pre>
The output is an integer whose value indicates what character sequences the \R
escape sequence matches by default. A value of 0 means that \R matches any
Unicode line ending sequence; a value of 1 means that \R matches only CR, LF,
or CRLF. The default can be overridden when a pattern is compiled or matched.
<pre>
PCRE_CONFIG_LINK_SIZE
</pre>
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.
<pre>
PCRE_CONFIG_POSIX_MALLOC_THRESHOLD
</pre>
The output is an integer that contains the threshold above which the POSIX
interface uses <b>malloc()</b> for output vectors. Further details are given in
the
<a href="pcreposix.html"><b>pcreposix</b></a>
documentation.
<pre>
PCRE_CONFIG_MATCH_LIMIT
</pre>
The output is a long integer that gives the default limit for the number of
internal matching function calls in a <b>pcre_exec()</b> execution. Further
details are given with <b>pcre_exec()</b> below.
<pre>
PCRE_CONFIG_MATCH_LIMIT_RECURSION
</pre>
The output is a long integer that gives the default limit for the depth of
recursion when calling the internal matching function in a <b>pcre_exec()</b>
execution. Further details are given with <b>pcre_exec()</b> below.
<pre>
PCRE_CONFIG_STACKRECURSE
</pre>
The output is an integer that is set to one if internal recursion when running
<b>pcre_exec()</b> 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, <b>pcre_stack_malloc</b> and
<b>pcre_stack_free</b> are called to manage memory blocks on the heap, thus
avoiding the use of the stack.
</P>
<br><a name="SEC7" href="#TOC1">COMPILING A PATTERN</a><br>
<P>
<b>pcre *pcre_compile(const char *<i>pattern</i>, int <i>options</i>,</b>
<b>const char **<i>errptr</i>, int *<i>erroffset</i>,</b>
<b>const unsigned char *<i>tableptr</i>);</b>
<b>pcre *pcre_compile2(const char *<i>pattern</i>, int <i>options</i>,</b>
<b>int *<i>errorcodeptr</i>,</b>
<b>const char **<i>errptr</i>, int *<i>erroffset</i>,</b>
<b>const unsigned char *<i>tableptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
Either of the functions <b>pcre_compile()</b> or <b>pcre_compile2()</b> can be
called to compile a pattern into an internal form. The only difference between
the two interfaces is that <b>pcre_compile2()</b> has an additional argument,
<i>errorcodeptr</i>, via which a numerical error code can be returned. To avoid
too much repetition, we refer just to <b>pcre_compile()</b> below, but the
information applies equally to <b>pcre_compile2()</b>.
</P>
<P>
The pattern is a C string terminated by a binary zero, and is passed in the
<i>pattern</i> argument. A pointer to a single block of memory that is obtained
via <b>pcre_malloc</b> is returned. This contains the compiled code and related
data. The <b>pcre</b> 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 (via <b>pcre_free</b>) when it is no longer required.
</P>
<P>
Although the compiled code of a PCRE regex is relocatable, that is, it does not
depend on memory location, the complete <b>pcre</b> data block is not
fully relocatable, because it may contain a copy of the <i>tableptr</i>
argument, which is an address (see below).
</P>
<P>
The <i>options</i> argument contains various bit settings that affect the
compilation. It should be zero if no options are required. The available
options are described below. Some of them (in particular, those that are
compatible with Perl, but some others as well) can also be set and unset from
within the pattern (see the detailed description in the
<a href="pcrepattern.html"><b>pcrepattern</b></a>
documentation). For those options that can be different in different parts of
the pattern, the contents of the <i>options</i> argument specifies their
settings at the start of compilation and execution. The PCRE_ANCHORED,
PCRE_BSR_<i>xxx</i>, and PCRE_NEWLINE_<i>xxx</i> options can be set at the time
of matching as well as at compile time.
</P>
<P>
If <i>errptr</i> is NULL, <b>pcre_compile()</b> returns NULL immediately.
Otherwise, if compilation of a pattern fails, <b>pcre_compile()</b> returns
NULL, and sets the variable pointed to by <i>errptr</i> to point to a textual
error message. This is a static string that is part of the library. You must
not try to free it. The byte offset from the start of the pattern to the
character that was being processed when the error was discovered is placed in
the variable pointed to by <i>erroffset</i>, which must not be NULL. If it is,
an immediate error is given. Some errors are not detected until checks are
carried out when the whole pattern has been scanned; in this case the offset is
set to the end of the pattern.
</P>
<P>
If <b>pcre_compile2()</b> is used instead of <b>pcre_compile()</b>, and the
<i>errorcodeptr</i> argument is not NULL, a non-zero error code number is
returned via this argument in the event of an error. This is in addition to the
textual error message. Error codes and messages are listed below.
</P>
<P>
If the final argument, <i>tableptr</i>, is NULL, PCRE uses a default set of
character tables that are built when PCRE is compiled, using the default C
locale. Otherwise, <i>tableptr</i> must be an address that is the result of a
call to <b>pcre_maketables()</b>. This value is stored with the compiled
pattern, and used again by <b>pcre_exec()</b>, unless another table pointer is
passed to it. For more discussion, see the section on locale support below.
</P>
<P>
This code fragment shows a typical straightforward call to <b>pcre_compile()</b>:
<pre>
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 */
</pre>
The following names for option bits are defined in the <b>pcre.h</b> header
file:
<pre>
PCRE_ANCHORED
</pre>
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 that 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.
<pre>
PCRE_AUTO_CALLOUT
</pre>
If this bit is set, <b>pcre_compile()</b> automatically inserts callout items,
all with number 255, before each pattern item. For discussion of the callout
facility, see the
<a href="pcrecallout.html"><b>pcrecallout</b></a>
documentation.
<pre>
PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF
PCRE_BSR_UNICODE
</pre>
These options (which are mutually exclusive) control what the \R escape
sequence matches. The choice is either to match only CR, LF, or CRLF, or to
match any Unicode newline sequence. The default is specified when PCRE is
built. It can be overridden from within the pattern, or by setting an option
when a compiled pattern is matched.
<pre>
PCRE_CASELESS
</pre>
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. In UTF-8 mode, PCRE always understands the
concept of case for characters whose values are less than 128, so caseless
matching is always possible. For characters with higher values, the concept of
case is supported if PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support, but not
otherwise. If you want to use caseless matching for characters 128 and above,
you must ensure that PCRE is compiled with Unicode property support as well as
with UTF-8 support.
<pre>
PCRE_DOLLAR_ENDONLY
</pre>
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 a newline at the end of the string (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.
<pre>
PCRE_DOTALL
</pre>
If this bit is set, a dot metacharater in the pattern matches all characters,
including those that indicate newline. Without it, a dot does not match when
the current position is at a newline. 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 newline characters, independent of
the setting of this option.
<pre>
PCRE_DUPNAMES
</pre>
If this bit is set, names used to identify capturing subpatterns need not be
unique. This can be helpful for certain types of pattern when it is known that
only one instance of the named subpattern can ever be matched. There are more
details of named subpatterns below; see also the
<a href="pcrepattern.html"><b>pcrepattern</b></a>
documentation.
<pre>
PCRE_EXTENDED
</pre>
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, 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.
</P>
<P>
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.
<pre>
PCRE_EXTRA
</pre>
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. (Perl can, however, be persuaded to
give a warning for this.) There are at present no other features controlled by
this option. It can also be set by a (?X) option setting within a pattern.
<pre>
PCRE_FIRSTLINE
</pre>
If this option is set, an unanchored pattern is required to match before or at
the first newline in the subject string, though the matched text may continue
over the newline.
<pre>
PCRE_JAVASCRIPT_COMPAT
</pre>
If this option is set, PCRE's behaviour is changed in some ways so that it is
compatible with JavaScript rather than Perl. The changes are as follows:
</P>
<P>
(1) A lone closing square bracket in a pattern causes a compile-time error,
because this is illegal in JavaScript (by default it is treated as a data
character). Thus, the pattern AB]CD becomes illegal when this option is set.
</P>
<P>
(2) At run time, a back reference to an unset subpattern group matches an empty
string (by default this causes the current matching alternative to fail). A
pattern such as (\1)(a) succeeds when this option is set (assuming it can find
an "a" in the subject), whereas it fails by default, for Perl compatibility.
<pre>
PCRE_MULTILINE
</pre>
By default, PCRE treats the subject string as consisting of a single line of
characters (even if it actually contains 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.
</P>
<P>
When PCRE_MULTILINE it is set, the "start of line" and "end of line" constructs
match immediately following or immediately before internal newlines 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 newlines in a subject string, or no
occurrences of ^ or $ in a pattern, setting PCRE_MULTILINE has no effect.
<pre>
PCRE_NEWLINE_CR
PCRE_NEWLINE_LF
PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF
PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF
PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY
</pre>
These options override the default newline definition that was chosen when PCRE
was built. Setting the first or the second specifies that a newline is
indicated by a single character (CR or LF, respectively). Setting
PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF specifies that a newline is indicated by the two-character
CRLF sequence. Setting PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF specifies that any of the three
preceding sequences should be recognized. Setting PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY specifies
that any Unicode newline sequence should be recognized. The Unicode newline
sequences are the three just mentioned, plus the single characters VT (vertical
tab, U+000B), FF (formfeed, U+000C), NEL (next line, U+0085), LS (line
separator, U+2028), and PS (paragraph separator, U+2029). The last two are
recognized only in UTF-8 mode.
</P>
<P>
The newline setting in the options word uses three bits that are treated
as a number, giving eight possibilities. Currently only six are used (default
plus the five values above). This means that if you set more than one newline
option, the combination may or may not be sensible. For example,
PCRE_NEWLINE_CR with PCRE_NEWLINE_LF is equivalent to PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF, but
other combinations may yield unused numbers and cause an error.
</P>
<P>
The only time that a line break is specially recognized when compiling a
pattern is if PCRE_EXTENDED is set, and an unescaped # outside a character
class is encountered. This indicates a comment that lasts until after the next
line break sequence. In other circumstances, line break sequences are treated
as literal data, except that in PCRE_EXTENDED mode, both CR and LF are treated
as whitespace characters and are therefore ignored.
</P>
<P>
The newline option that is set at compile time becomes the default that is used
for <b>pcre_exec()</b> and <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b>, but it can be overridden.
<pre>
PCRE_NO_AUTO_CAPTURE
</pre>
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.
<pre>
PCRE_UNGREEDY
</pre>
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.
<pre>
PCRE_UTF8
</pre>
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 when PCRE is 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
<a href="pcre.html#utf8support">section on UTF-8 support</a>
in the main
<a href="pcre.html"><b>pcre</b></a>
page.
<pre>
PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK
</pre>
When PCRE_UTF8 is set, the validity of the pattern as a UTF-8 string is
automatically checked. There is a discussion about the
<a href="pcre.html#utf8strings">validity of UTF-8 strings</a>
in the main
<a href="pcre.html"><b>pcre</b></a>
page. If an invalid UTF-8 sequence of bytes is found, <b>pcre_compile()</b>
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 this option
can also be passed to <b>pcre_exec()</b> and <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b>, to suppress
the UTF-8 validity checking of subject strings.
</P>
<br><a name="SEC8" href="#TOC1">COMPILATION ERROR CODES</a><br>
<P>
The following table lists the error codes than may be returned by
<b>pcre_compile2()</b>, along with the error messages that may be returned by
both compiling functions. As PCRE has developed, some error codes have fallen
out of use. To avoid confusion, they have not been re-used.
<pre>
0 no error
1 \ at end of pattern
2 \c at end of pattern
3 unrecognized character follows \
4 numbers out of order in {} quantifier
5 number too big in {} quantifier
6 missing terminating ] for character class
7 invalid escape sequence in character class
8 range out of order in character class
9 nothing to repeat
10 [this code is not in use]
11 internal error: unexpected repeat
12 unrecognized character after (? or (?-
13 POSIX named classes are supported only within a class
14 missing )
15 reference to non-existent subpattern
16 erroffset passed as NULL
17 unknown option bit(s) set
18 missing ) after comment
19 [this code is not in use]
20 regular expression is too large
21 failed to get memory
22 unmatched parentheses
23 internal error: code overflow
24 unrecognized character after (?<
25 lookbehind assertion is not fixed length
26 malformed number or name after (?(
27 conditional group contains more than two branches
28 assertion expected after (?(
29 (?R or (?[+-]digits must be followed by )
30 unknown POSIX class name
31 POSIX collating elements are not supported
32 this version of PCRE is not compiled with PCRE_UTF8 support
33 [this code is not in use]
34 character value in \x{...} sequence is too large
35 invalid condition (?(0)
36 \C not allowed in lookbehind assertion
37 PCRE does not support \L, \l, \N, \U, or \u
38 number after (?C is > 255
39 closing ) for (?C expected
40 recursive call could loop indefinitely
41 unrecognized character after (?P
42 syntax error in subpattern name (missing terminator)
43 two named subpatterns have the same name
44 invalid UTF-8 string
45 support for \P, \p, and \X has not been compiled
46 malformed \P or \p sequence
47 unknown property name after \P or \p
48 subpattern name is too long (maximum 32 characters)
49 too many named subpatterns (maximum 10000)
50 [this code is not in use]
51 octal value is greater than \377 (not in UTF-8 mode)
52 internal error: overran compiling workspace
53 internal error: previously-checked referenced subpattern not found
54 DEFINE group contains more than one branch
55 repeating a DEFINE group is not allowed
56 inconsistent NEWLINE options
57 \g is not followed by a braced, angle-bracketed, or quoted
name/number or by a plain number
58 a numbered reference must not be zero
59 (*VERB) with an argument is not supported
60 (*VERB) not recognized
61 number is too big
62 subpattern name expected
63 digit expected after (?+
64 ] is an invalid data character in JavaScript compatibility mode
</pre>
The numbers 32 and 10000 in errors 48 and 49 are defaults; different values may
be used if the limits were changed when PCRE was built.
</P>
<br><a name="SEC9" href="#TOC1">STUDYING A PATTERN</a><br>
<P>
<b>pcre_extra *pcre_study(const pcre *<i>code</i>, int <i>options</i></b>
<b>const char **<i>errptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
If a compiled 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 <b>pcre_study()</b> takes a pointer to a compiled pattern as its first
argument. If studying the pattern produces additional information that will
help speed up matching, <b>pcre_study()</b> returns a pointer to a
<b>pcre_extra</b> block, in which the <i>study_data</i> field points to the
results of the study.
</P>
<P>
The returned value from <b>pcre_study()</b> can be passed directly to
<b>pcre_exec()</b> or <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b>. However, a <b>pcre_extra</b> block
also contains other fields that can be set by the caller before the block is
passed; these are described
<a href="#extradata">below</a>
in the section on matching a pattern.
</P>
<P>
If studying the pattern does not produce any useful information,
<b>pcre_study()</b> returns NULL. In that circumstance, if the calling program
wants to pass any of the other fields to <b>pcre_exec()</b> or
<b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b>, it must set up its own <b>pcre_extra</b> block.
</P>
<P>
The second argument of <b>pcre_study()</b> contains option bits. At present, no
options are defined, and this argument should always be zero.
</P>
<P>
The third argument for <b>pcre_study()</b> 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 is set to point to a textual error message. This is a
static string that is part of the library. You must not try to free it. You
should test the error pointer for NULL after calling <b>pcre_study()</b>, to be
sure that it has run successfully.
</P>
<P>
This is a typical call to <b>pcre_study</b>():
<pre>
pcre_extra *pe;
pe = pcre_study(
re, /* result of pcre_compile() */
0, /* no options exist */
&error); /* set to NULL or points to a message */
</pre>
Studying a pattern does two things: first, a lower bound for the length of
subject string that is needed to match the pattern is computed. This does not
mean that there are any strings of that length that match, but it does
guarantee that no shorter strings match. The value is used by
<b>pcre_exec()</b> and <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> to avoid wasting time by trying to
match strings that are shorter than the lower bound. You can find out the value
in a calling program via the <b>pcre_fullinfo()</b> function.
</P>
<P>
Studying a pattern is also useful for non-anchored patterns that do not have a
single fixed starting character. A bitmap of possible starting bytes is
created. This speeds up finding a position in the subject at which to start
matching.
<a name="localesupport"></a></P>
<br><a name="SEC10" href="#TOC1">LOCALE SUPPORT</a><br>
<P>
PCRE handles caseless matching, and determines whether characters are letters,
digits, or whatever, by reference to a set of tables, indexed by character
value. When running in UTF-8 mode, this applies only to characters with codes
less than 128. Higher-valued codes never match escapes such as \w or \d, but
can be tested with \p if PCRE is built with Unicode character property
support. The use of locales with Unicode is discouraged. If you are handling
characters with codes greater than 128, you should either use UTF-8 and
Unicode, or use locales, but not try to mix the two.
</P>
<P>
PCRE contains an internal set of tables that are used when the final argument
of <b>pcre_compile()</b> is NULL. These are sufficient for many applications.
Normally, the internal tables recognize only ASCII characters. However, when
PCRE is built, it is possible to cause the internal tables to be rebuilt in the
default "C" locale of the local system, which may cause them to be different.
</P>
<P>
The internal tables can always be overridden by tables supplied by the
application that calls PCRE. These may be created in a different locale from
the default. As more and more applications change to using Unicode, the need
for this locale support is expected to die away.
</P>
<P>
External tables are built by calling the <b>pcre_maketables()</b> function,
which has no arguments, in the relevant locale. The result can then be passed
to <b>pcre_compile()</b> or <b>pcre_exec()</b> as often as necessary. For
example, to build and use tables that are appropriate for the French locale
(where accented characters with values greater than 128 are treated as letters),
the following code could be used:
<pre>
setlocale(LC_CTYPE, "fr_FR");
tables = pcre_maketables();
re = pcre_compile(..., tables);
</pre>
The locale name "fr_FR" is used on Linux and other Unix-like systems; if you
are using Windows, the name for the French locale is "french".
</P>
<P>
When <b>pcre_maketables()</b> runs, the tables are built in memory that is
obtained via <b>pcre_malloc</b>. It is the caller's responsibility to ensure
that the memory containing the tables remains available for as long as it is
needed.
</P>
<P>
The pointer that is passed to <b>pcre_compile()</b> is saved with the compiled
pattern, and the same tables are used via this pointer by <b>pcre_study()</b>
and normally also by <b>pcre_exec()</b>. Thus, by default, for any single
pattern, compilation, studying and matching all happen in the same locale, but
different patterns can be compiled in different locales.
</P>
<P>
It is possible to pass a table pointer or NULL (indicating the use of the
internal tables) to <b>pcre_exec()</b>. Although not intended for this purpose,
this facility could be used to match a pattern in a different locale from the
one in which it was compiled. Passing table pointers at run time is discussed
below in the section on matching a pattern.
</P>
<br><a name="SEC11" href="#TOC1">INFORMATION ABOUT A PATTERN</a><br>
<P>
<b>int pcre_fullinfo(const pcre *<i>code</i>, const pcre_extra *<i>extra</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>what</i>, void *<i>where</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
The <b>pcre_fullinfo()</b> function returns information about a compiled
pattern. It replaces the obsolete <b>pcre_info()</b> function, which is
nevertheless retained for backwards compability (and is documented below).
</P>
<P>
The first argument for <b>pcre_fullinfo()</b> is a pointer to the compiled
pattern. The second argument is the result of <b>pcre_study()</b>, 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:
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_NULL the argument <i>code</i> was NULL
the argument <i>where</i> was NULL
PCRE_ERROR_BADMAGIC the "magic number" was not found
PCRE_ERROR_BADOPTION the value of <i>what</i> was invalid
</pre>
The "magic number" is placed at the start of each compiled pattern as an simple
check against passing an arbitrary memory pointer. Here is a typical call of
<b>pcre_fullinfo()</b>, to obtain the length of the compiled pattern:
<pre>
int rc;
size_t 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 */
</pre>
The possible values for the third argument are defined in <b>pcre.h</b>, and are
as follows:
<pre>
PCRE_INFO_BACKREFMAX
</pre>
Return the number of the highest back reference in the pattern. The fourth
argument should point to an <b>int</b> variable. Zero is returned if there are
no back references.
<pre>
PCRE_INFO_CAPTURECOUNT
</pre>
Return the number of capturing subpatterns in the pattern. The fourth argument
should point to an <b>int</b> variable.
<pre>
PCRE_INFO_DEFAULT_TABLES
</pre>
Return a pointer to the internal default character tables within PCRE. The
fourth argument should point to an <b>unsigned char *</b> variable. This
information call is provided for internal use by the <b>pcre_study()</b>
function. External callers can cause PCRE to use its internal tables by passing
a NULL table pointer.
<pre>
PCRE_INFO_FIRSTBYTE
</pre>
Return information about the first byte of any matched string, for a
non-anchored pattern. The fourth argument should point to an <b>int</b>
variable. (This option used to be called PCRE_INFO_FIRSTCHAR; the old name is
still recognized for backwards compatibility.)
</P>
<P>
If there is a fixed first byte, for example, from a pattern such as
(cat|cow|coyote), its value is returned. Otherwise, if either
<br>
<br>
(a) the pattern was compiled with the PCRE_MULTILINE option, and every branch
starts with "^", or
<br>
<br>
(b) every branch of the pattern starts with ".*" and PCRE_DOTALL is not set
(if it were set, the pattern would be anchored),
<br>
<br>
-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.
<pre>
PCRE_INFO_FIRSTTABLE
</pre>
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 <b>unsigned char *</b> variable.
<pre>
PCRE_INFO_HASCRORLF
</pre>
Return 1 if the pattern contains any explicit matches for CR or LF characters,
otherwise 0. The fourth argument should point to an <b>int</b> variable. An
explicit match is either a literal CR or LF character, or \r or \n.
<pre>
PCRE_INFO_JCHANGED
</pre>
Return 1 if the (?J) or (?-J) option setting is used in the pattern, otherwise
0. The fourth argument should point to an <b>int</b> variable. (?J) and
(?-J) set and unset the local PCRE_DUPNAMES option, respectively.
<pre>
PCRE_INFO_LASTLITERAL
</pre>
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 <b>int</b> 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.
<pre>
PCRE_INFO_MINLENGTH
</pre>
If the pattern was studied and a minimum length for matching subject strings
was computed, its value is returned. Otherwise the returned value is -1. The
value is a number of characters, not bytes (this may be relevant in UTF-8
mode). The fourth argument should point to an <b>int</b> variable. A
non-negative value is a lower bound to the length of any matching string. There
may not be any strings of that length that do actually match, but every string
that does match is at least that long.
<pre>
PCRE_INFO_NAMECOUNT
PCRE_INFO_NAMEENTRYSIZE
PCRE_INFO_NAMETABLE
</pre>
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 numbers. Several convenience functions such as
<b>pcre_get_named_substring()</b> are provided for extracting captured
substrings by name. It is also possible to extract the data directly, by first
converting the name to a number in order to access the correct pointers in the
output vector (described with <b>pcre_exec()</b> below). To do the conversion,
you need to use the name-to-number map, which is described by these three
values.
</P>
<P>
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 <b>int</b> 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 <b>char</b>). 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.
</P>
<P>
The names are in alphabetical order. Duplicate names may appear if (?| is used
to create multiple groups with the same number, as described in the
<a href="pcrepattern.html#dupsubpatternnumber">section on duplicate subpattern numbers</a>
in the
<a href="pcrepattern.html"><b>pcrepattern</b></a>
page. Duplicate names for subpatterns with different numbers are permitted only
if PCRE_DUPNAMES is set. In all cases of duplicate names, they appear in the
table in the order in which they were found in the pattern. In the absence of
(?| this is the order of increasing number; when (?| is used this is not
necessarily the case because later subpatterns may have lower numbers.
</P>
<P>
As a simple example of the name/number table, consider the following pattern
(assume PCRE_EXTENDED is set, so white space - including newlines - is
ignored):
<pre>
(?<date> (?<year>(\d\d)?\d\d) - (?<month>\d\d) - (?<day>\d\d) )
</pre>
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 hexadecimal, and undefined bytes shown as ??:
<pre>
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 ??
</pre>
When writing code to extract data from named subpatterns using the
name-to-number map, remember that the length of the entries is likely to be
different for each compiled pattern.
<pre>
PCRE_INFO_OKPARTIAL
</pre>
Return 1 if the pattern can be used for partial matching with
<b>pcre_exec()</b>, otherwise 0. The fourth argument should point to an
<b>int</b> variable. From release 8.00, this always returns 1, because the
restrictions that previously applied to partial matching have been lifted. The
<a href="pcrepartial.html"><b>pcrepartial</b></a>
documentation gives details of partial matching.
<pre>
PCRE_INFO_OPTIONS
</pre>
Return a copy of the options with which the pattern was compiled. The fourth
argument should point to an <b>unsigned long int</b> variable. These option bits
are those specified in the call to <b>pcre_compile()</b>, modified by any
top-level option settings at the start of the pattern itself. In other words,
they are the options that will be in force when matching starts. For example,
if the pattern /(?im)abc(?-i)d/ is compiled with the PCRE_EXTENDED option, the
result is PCRE_CASELESS, PCRE_MULTILINE, and PCRE_EXTENDED.
</P>
<P>
A pattern is automatically anchored by PCRE if all of its top-level
alternatives begin with one of the following:
<pre>
^ 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
</pre>
For such patterns, the PCRE_ANCHORED bit is set in the options returned by
<b>pcre_fullinfo()</b>.
<pre>
PCRE_INFO_SIZE
</pre>
Return the size of the compiled pattern, that is, the value that was passed as
the argument to <b>pcre_malloc()</b> when PCRE was getting memory in which to
place the compiled data. The fourth argument should point to a <b>size_t</b>
variable.
<pre>
PCRE_INFO_STUDYSIZE
</pre>
Return the size of the data block pointed to by the <i>study_data</i> field in
a <b>pcre_extra</b> block. That is, it is the value that was passed to
<b>pcre_malloc()</b> when PCRE was getting memory into which to place the data
created by <b>pcre_study()</b>. If <b>pcre_extra</b> is NULL, or there is no
study data, zero is returned. The fourth argument should point to a
<b>size_t</b> variable.
</P>
<br><a name="SEC12" href="#TOC1">OBSOLETE INFO FUNCTION</a><br>
<P>
<b>int pcre_info(const pcre *<i>code</i>, int *<i>optptr</i>, int</b>
<b>*<i>firstcharptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
The <b>pcre_info()</b> function is now obsolete because its interface is too
restrictive to return all the available data about a compiled pattern. New
programs should use <b>pcre_fullinfo()</b> instead. The yield of
<b>pcre_info()</b> is the number of capturing subpatterns, or one of the
following negative numbers:
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_NULL the argument <i>code</i> was NULL
PCRE_ERROR_BADMAGIC the "magic number" was not found
</pre>
If the <i>optptr</i> 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).
</P>
<P>
If the pattern is not anchored and the <i>firstcharptr</i> argument is not NULL,
it is used to pass back information about the first character of any matched
string (see PCRE_INFO_FIRSTBYTE above).
</P>
<br><a name="SEC13" href="#TOC1">REFERENCE COUNTS</a><br>
<P>
<b>int pcre_refcount(pcre *<i>code</i>, int <i>adjust</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
The <b>pcre_refcount()</b> function is used to maintain a reference count in the
data block that contains a compiled pattern. It is provided for the benefit of
applications that operate in an object-oriented manner, where different parts
of the application may be using the same compiled pattern, but you want to free
the block when they are all done.
</P>
<P>
When a pattern is compiled, the reference count field is initialized to zero.
It is changed only by calling this function, whose action is to add the
<i>adjust</i> value (which may be positive or negative) to it. The yield of the
function is the new value. However, the value of the count is constrained to
lie between 0 and 65535, inclusive. If the new value is outside these limits,
it is forced to the appropriate limit value.
</P>
<P>
Except when it is zero, the reference count is not correctly preserved if a
pattern is compiled on one host and then transferred to a host whose byte-order
is different. (This seems a highly unlikely scenario.)
</P>
<br><a name="SEC14" href="#TOC1">MATCHING A PATTERN: THE TRADITIONAL FUNCTION</a><br>
<P>
<b>int pcre_exec(const pcre *<i>code</i>, const pcre_extra *<i>extra</i>,</b>
<b>const char *<i>subject</i>, int <i>length</i>, int <i>startoffset</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>options</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>, int <i>ovecsize</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
The function <b>pcre_exec()</b> is called to match a subject string against a
compiled pattern, which is passed in the <i>code</i> argument. If the
pattern was studied, the result of the study should be passed in the
<i>extra</i> argument. This function is the main matching facility of the
library, and it operates in a Perl-like manner. For specialist use there is
also an alternative matching function, which is described
<a href="#dfamatch">below</a>
in the section about the <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> function.
</P>
<P>
In most applications, the pattern will have been compiled (and optionally
studied) in the same process that calls <b>pcre_exec()</b>. However, it is
possible to save compiled patterns and study data, and then use them later
in different processes, possibly even on different hosts. For a discussion
about this, see the
<a href="pcreprecompile.html"><b>pcreprecompile</b></a>
documentation.
</P>
<P>
Here is an example of a simple call to <b>pcre_exec()</b>:
<pre>
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 of integers for substring information */
30); /* number of elements (NOT size in bytes) */
<a name="extradata"></a></PRE>
</P>
<br><b>
Extra data for <b>pcre_exec()</b>
</b><br>
<P>
If the <i>extra</i> argument is not NULL, it must point to a <b>pcre_extra</b>
data block. The <b>pcre_study()</b> 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 <b>pcre_extra</b> block contains the following
fields (not necessarily in this order):
<pre>
unsigned long int <i>flags</i>;
void *<i>study_data</i>;
unsigned long int <i>match_limit</i>;
unsigned long int <i>match_limit_recursion</i>;
void *<i>callout_data</i>;
const unsigned char *<i>tables</i>;
</pre>
The <i>flags</i> field is a bitmap that specifies which of the other fields
are set. The flag bits are:
<pre>
PCRE_EXTRA_STUDY_DATA
PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT
PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT_RECURSION
PCRE_EXTRA_CALLOUT_DATA
PCRE_EXTRA_TABLES
</pre>
Other flag bits should be set to zero. The <i>study_data</i> field is set in the
<b>pcre_extra</b> block that is returned by <b>pcre_study()</b>, together with
the appropriate flag bit. You should not set this yourself, but you may add to
the block by setting the other fields and their corresponding flag bits.
</P>
<P>
The <i>match_limit</i> 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 a pattern that uses nested unlimited repeats.
</P>
<P>
Internally, PCRE uses a function called <b>match()</b> which it calls repeatedly
(sometimes recursively). The limit set by <i>match_limit</i> is imposed on the
number of times this function is called during a match, which has the effect of
limiting the amount of backtracking that can take place. For patterns that are
not anchored, the count restarts from zero for each position in the subject
string.
</P>
<P>
The default value for the limit can be set when PCRE is built; the default
default is 10 million, which handles all but the most extreme cases. You can
override the default by suppling <b>pcre_exec()</b> with a <b>pcre_extra</b>
block in which <i>match_limit</i> is set, and PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT is set in
the <i>flags</i> field. If the limit is exceeded, <b>pcre_exec()</b> returns
PCRE_ERROR_MATCHLIMIT.
</P>
<P>
The <i>match_limit_recursion</i> field is similar to <i>match_limit</i>, but
instead of limiting the total number of times that <b>match()</b> is called, it
limits the depth of recursion. The recursion depth is a smaller number than the
total number of calls, because not all calls to <b>match()</b> are recursive.
This limit is of use only if it is set smaller than <i>match_limit</i>.
</P>
<P>
Limiting the recursion depth limits the amount of stack that can be used, or,
when PCRE has been compiled to use memory on the heap instead of the stack, the
amount of heap memory that can be used.
</P>
<P>
The default value for <i>match_limit_recursion</i> can be set when PCRE is
built; the default default is the same value as the default for
<i>match_limit</i>. You can override the default by suppling <b>pcre_exec()</b>
with a <b>pcre_extra</b> block in which <i>match_limit_recursion</i> is set, and
PCRE_EXTRA_MATCH_LIMIT_RECURSION is set in the <i>flags</i> field. If the limit
is exceeded, <b>pcre_exec()</b> returns PCRE_ERROR_RECURSIONLIMIT.
</P>
<P>
The <i>callout_data</i> field is used in conjunction with the "callout" feature,
and is described in the
<a href="pcrecallout.html"><b>pcrecallout</b></a>
documentation.
</P>
<P>
The <i>tables</i> field is used to pass a character tables pointer to
<b>pcre_exec()</b>; this overrides the value that is stored with the compiled
pattern. A non-NULL value is stored with the compiled pattern only if custom
tables were supplied to <b>pcre_compile()</b> via its <i>tableptr</i> argument.
If NULL is passed to <b>pcre_exec()</b> using this mechanism, it forces PCRE's
internal tables to be used. This facility is helpful when re-using patterns
that have been saved after compiling with an external set of tables, because
the external tables might be at a different address when <b>pcre_exec()</b> is
called. See the
<a href="pcreprecompile.html"><b>pcreprecompile</b></a>
documentation for a discussion of saving compiled patterns for later use.
<a name="execoptions"></a></P>
<br><b>
Option bits for <b>pcre_exec()</b>
</b><br>
<P>
The unused bits of the <i>options</i> argument for <b>pcre_exec()</b> must be
zero. The only bits that may be set are PCRE_ANCHORED, PCRE_NEWLINE_<i>xxx</i>,
PCRE_NOTBOL, PCRE_NOTEOL, PCRE_NOTEMPTY, PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART,
PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE, PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK, PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT, and
PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD.
<pre>
PCRE_ANCHORED
</pre>
The PCRE_ANCHORED option limits <b>pcre_exec()</b> to matching at the first
matching position. 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.
<pre>
PCRE_BSR_ANYCRLF
PCRE_BSR_UNICODE
</pre>
These options (which are mutually exclusive) control what the \R escape
sequence matches. The choice is either to match only CR, LF, or CRLF, or to
match any Unicode newline sequence. These options override the choice that was
made or defaulted when the pattern was compiled.
<pre>
PCRE_NEWLINE_CR
PCRE_NEWLINE_LF
PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF
PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF
PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY
</pre>
These options override the newline definition that was chosen or defaulted when
the pattern was compiled. For details, see the description of
<b>pcre_compile()</b> above. During matching, the newline choice affects the
behaviour of the dot, circumflex, and dollar metacharacters. It may also alter
the way the match position is advanced after a match failure for an unanchored
pattern.
</P>
<P>
When PCRE_NEWLINE_CRLF, PCRE_NEWLINE_ANYCRLF, or PCRE_NEWLINE_ANY is set, and a
match attempt for an unanchored pattern fails when the current position is at a
CRLF sequence, and the pattern contains no explicit matches for CR or LF
characters, the match position is advanced by two characters instead of one, in
other words, to after the CRLF.
</P>
<P>
The above rule is a compromise that makes the most common cases work as
expected. For example, if the pattern is .+A (and the PCRE_DOTALL option is not
set), it does not match the string "\r\nA" because, after failing at the
start, it skips both the CR and the LF before retrying. However, the pattern
[\r\n]A does match that string, because it contains an explicit CR or LF
reference, and so advances only by one character after the first failure.
</P>
<P>
An explicit match for CR of LF is either a literal appearance of one of those
characters, or one of the \r or \n escape sequences. Implicit matches such as
[^X] do not count, nor does \s (which includes CR and LF in the characters
that it matches).
</P>
<P>
Notwithstanding the above, anomalous effects may still occur when CRLF is a
valid newline sequence and explicit \r or \n escapes appear in the pattern.
<pre>
PCRE_NOTBOL
</pre>
This option specifies that first character of the subject 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. This option affects only the behaviour of the circumflex
metacharacter. It does not affect \A.
<pre>
PCRE_NOTEOL
</pre>
This option specifies that the end of the subject 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. This option affects only the
behaviour of the dollar metacharacter. It does not affect \Z or \z.
<pre>
PCRE_NOTEMPTY
</pre>
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
<pre>
a?b?
</pre>
is applied to a string not beginning with "a" or "b", it matches an 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".
<pre>
PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART
</pre>
This is like PCRE_NOTEMPTY, except that an empty string match that is not at
the start of the subject is permitted. If the pattern is anchored, such a match
can occur only if the pattern contains \K.
</P>
<P>
Perl has no direct equivalent of PCRE_NOTEMPTY or PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART, but it
does make a special case of a pattern match of the empty string within its
<b>split()</b> 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_ATSTART and PCRE_ANCHORED, and then
if that fails, by advancing the starting offset (see below) and trying an
ordinary match again. There is some code that demonstrates how to do this in
the
<a href="pcredemo.html"><b>pcredemo</b></a>
sample program.
<pre>
PCRE_NO_START_OPTIMIZE
</pre>
There are a number of optimizations that <b>pcre_exec()</b> uses at the start of
a match, in order to speed up the process. For example, if it is known that a
match must start with a specific character, it searches the subject for that
character, and fails immediately if it cannot find it, without actually running
the main matching function. When callouts are in use, these optimizations can
cause them to be skipped. This option disables the "start-up" optimizations,
causing performance to suffer, but ensuring that the callouts do occur.
<pre>
PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK
</pre>
When PCRE_UTF8 is set at compile time, the validity of the subject as a UTF-8
string is automatically checked when <b>pcre_exec()</b> is subsequently called.
The value of <i>startoffset</i> is also checked to ensure that it points to the
start of a UTF-8 character. There is a discussion about the validity of UTF-8
strings in the
<a href="pcre.html#utf8strings">section on UTF-8 support</a>
in the main
<a href="pcre.html"><b>pcre</b></a>
page. If an invalid UTF-8 sequence of bytes is found, <b>pcre_exec()</b> returns
the error PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8. If <i>startoffset</i> contains an invalid value,
PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8_OFFSET is returned.
</P>
<P>
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 <b>pcre_exec()</b>. You might want to do this for the second and
subsequent calls to <b>pcre_exec()</b> 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 <i>startoffset</i> 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 <i>startoffset</i> that does not point to the start of a
UTF-8 character, is undefined. Your program may crash.
<pre>
PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD
PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT
</pre>
These options turn on the partial matching feature. For backwards
compatibility, PCRE_PARTIAL is a synonym for PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT. A partial match
occurs if the end of the subject string is reached successfully, but there are
not enough subject characters to complete the match. If this happens when
PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD is set, <b>pcre_exec()</b> immediately returns
PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL. Otherwise, if PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT is set, matching continues
by testing any other alternatives. Only if they all fail is PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL
returned (instead of PCRE_ERROR_NOMATCH). The portion of the string that
was inspected when the partial match was found is set as the first matching
string. There is a more detailed discussion in the
<a href="pcrepartial.html"><b>pcrepartial</b></a>
documentation.
</P>
<br><b>
The string to be matched by <b>pcre_exec()</b>
</b><br>
<P>
The subject string is passed to <b>pcre_exec()</b> as a pointer in
<i>subject</i>, a length (in bytes) in <i>length</i>, and a starting byte offset
in <i>startoffset</i>. In UTF-8 mode, the byte offset must point to the start of
a UTF-8 character. 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.
</P>
<P>
A non-zero starting offset is useful when searching for another match in the
same subject by calling <b>pcre_exec()</b> again after a previous success.
Setting <i>startoffset</i> 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
<pre>
\Biss\B
</pre>
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 <b>pcre_exec()</b> finds the first
occurrence. If <b>pcre_exec()</b> 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
<b>pcre_exec()</b> is passed the entire string again, but with <i>startoffset</i>
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.
</P>
<P>
If a non-zero starting offset is passed when the pattern is anchored, one
attempt to match at the given offset is made. This can only succeed if the
pattern does not require the match to be at the start of the subject.
</P>
<br><b>
How <b>pcre_exec()</b> returns captured substrings
</b><br>
<P>
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.
</P>
<P>
Captured substrings are returned to the caller via a vector of integers whose
address is passed in <i>ovector</i>. The number of elements in the vector is
passed in <i>ovecsize</i>, which must be a non-negative number. <b>Note</b>: this
argument is NOT the size of <i>ovector</i> in bytes.
</P>
<P>
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 <b>pcre_exec()</b> while matching capturing subpatterns,
and is not available for passing back information. The number passed in
<i>ovecsize</i> should always be a multiple of three. If it is not, it is
rounded down.
</P>
<P>
When a match is successful, information about captured substrings is returned
in pairs of integers, starting at the beginning of <i>ovector</i>, and
continuing up to two-thirds of its length at the most. The first element of
each pair is set to the byte offset of the first character in a substring, and
the second is set to the byte offset of the first character after the end of a
substring. <b>Note</b>: these values are always byte offsets, even in UTF-8
mode. They are not character counts.
</P>
<P>
The first pair of integers, <i>ovector[0]</i> and <i>ovector[1]</i>, 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
<b>pcre_exec()</b> is one more than the highest numbered pair that has been set.
For example, if two substrings have been captured, the returned value is 3. 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.
</P>
<P>
If a capturing subpattern is matched repeatedly, it is the last portion of the
string that it matched that is returned.
</P>
<P>
If the vector is too small to hold all the captured substring offsets, it is
used as far as possible (up to two-thirds of its length), and the function
returns a value of zero. If the substring offsets are not of interest,
<b>pcre_exec()</b> may be called with <i>ovector</i> passed as NULL and
<i>ovecsize</i> as zero. However, if the pattern contains back references and
the <i>ovector</i> is not 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 <i>ovector</i>.
</P>
<P>
The <b>pcre_fullinfo()</b> function can be used to find out how many capturing
subpatterns there are in a compiled pattern. The smallest size for
<i>ovector</i> that will allow for <i>n</i> captured substrings, in addition to
the offsets of the substring matched by the whole pattern, is (<i>n</i>+1)*3.
</P>
<P>
It is possible for capturing subpattern number <i>n+1</i> to match some part of
the subject when subpattern <i>n</i> has not been used at all. For example, if
the string "abc" is matched against the pattern (a|(z))(bc) the return from the
function is 4, and subpatterns 1 and 3 are matched, but 2 is not. When this
happens, both values in the offset pairs corresponding to unused subpatterns
are set to -1.
</P>
<P>
Offset values that correspond to unused subpatterns at the end of the
expression are also set to -1. For example, if the string "abc" is matched
against the pattern (abc)(x(yz)?)? subpatterns 2 and 3 are not matched. The
return from the function is 2, because the highest used capturing subpattern
number is 1. However, you can refer to the offsets for the second and third
capturing subpatterns if you wish (assuming the vector is large enough, of
course).
</P>
<P>
Some convenience functions are provided for extracting the captured substrings
as separate strings. These are described below.
<a name="errorlist"></a></P>
<br><b>
Error return values from <b>pcre_exec()</b>
</b><br>
<P>
If <b>pcre_exec()</b> fails, it returns a negative number. The following are
defined in the header file:
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_NOMATCH (-1)
</pre>
The subject string did not match the pattern.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_NULL (-2)
</pre>
Either <i>code</i> or <i>subject</i> was passed as NULL, or <i>ovector</i> was
NULL and <i>ovecsize</i> was not zero.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_BADOPTION (-3)
</pre>
An unrecognized bit was set in the <i>options</i> argument.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_BADMAGIC (-4)
</pre>
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 and to detect when a pattern that was
compiled in an environment of one endianness is run in an environment with the
other endianness. This is the error that PCRE gives when the magic number is
not present.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_UNKNOWN_OPCODE (-5)
</pre>
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.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_NOMEMORY (-6)
</pre>
If a pattern contains back references, but the <i>ovector</i> that is passed to
<b>pcre_exec()</b> 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 <b>pcre_malloc()</b> fails, this error is given. The memory is
automatically freed at the end of matching.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING (-7)
</pre>
This error is used by the <b>pcre_copy_substring()</b>,
<b>pcre_get_substring()</b>, and <b>pcre_get_substring_list()</b> functions (see
below). It is never returned by <b>pcre_exec()</b>.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_MATCHLIMIT (-8)
</pre>
The backtracking limit, as specified by the <i>match_limit</i> field in a
<b>pcre_extra</b> structure (or defaulted) was reached. See the description
above.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_CALLOUT (-9)
</pre>
This error is never generated by <b>pcre_exec()</b> itself. It is provided for
use by callout functions that want to yield a distinctive error code. See the
<a href="pcrecallout.html"><b>pcrecallout</b></a>
documentation for details.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8 (-10)
</pre>
A string that contains an invalid UTF-8 byte sequence was passed as a subject.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_BADUTF8_OFFSET (-11)
</pre>
The UTF-8 byte sequence that was passed as a subject was valid, but the value
of <i>startoffset</i> did not point to the beginning of a UTF-8 character.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL (-12)
</pre>
The subject string did not match, but it did match partially. See the
<a href="pcrepartial.html"><b>pcrepartial</b></a>
documentation for details of partial matching.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_BADPARTIAL (-13)
</pre>
This code is no longer in use. It was formerly returned when the PCRE_PARTIAL
option was used with a compiled pattern containing items that were not
supported for partial matching. From release 8.00 onwards, there are no
restrictions on partial matching.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_INTERNAL (-14)
</pre>
An unexpected internal error has occurred. This error could be caused by a bug
in PCRE or by overwriting of the compiled pattern.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_BADCOUNT (-15)
</pre>
This error is given if the value of the <i>ovecsize</i> argument is negative.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_RECURSIONLIMIT (-21)
</pre>
The internal recursion limit, as specified by the <i>match_limit_recursion</i>
field in a <b>pcre_extra</b> structure (or defaulted) was reached. See the
description above.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_BADNEWLINE (-23)
</pre>
An invalid combination of PCRE_NEWLINE_<i>xxx</i> options was given.
</P>
<P>
Error numbers -16 to -20 and -22 are not used by <b>pcre_exec()</b>.
</P>
<br><a name="SEC15" href="#TOC1">EXTRACTING CAPTURED SUBSTRINGS BY NUMBER</a><br>
<P>
<b>int pcre_copy_substring(const char *<i>subject</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>stringcount</i>, int <i>stringnumber</i>, char *<i>buffer</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>buffersize</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_get_substring(const char *<i>subject</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>stringcount</i>, int <i>stringnumber</i>,</b>
<b>const char **<i>stringptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_get_substring_list(const char *<i>subject</i>,</b>
<b>int *<i>ovector</i>, int <i>stringcount</i>, const char ***<i>listptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
Captured substrings can be accessed directly by using the offsets returned by
<b>pcre_exec()</b> in <i>ovector</i>. For convenience, the functions
<b>pcre_copy_substring()</b>, <b>pcre_get_substring()</b>, and
<b>pcre_get_substring_list()</b> 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.
</P>
<P>
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.
However, you can process such a string by referring to the length that is
returned by <b>pcre_copy_substring()</b> and <b>pcre_get_substring()</b>.
Unfortunately, the interface to <b>pcre_get_substring_list()</b> is not adequate
for handling strings containing binary zeros, because the end of the final
string is not independently indicated.
</P>
<P>
The first three arguments are the same for all three of these functions:
<i>subject</i> is the subject string that has just been successfully matched,
<i>ovector</i> is a pointer to the vector of integer offsets that was passed to
<b>pcre_exec()</b>, and <i>stringcount</i> 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 <b>pcre_exec()</b> if it is greater
than zero. If <b>pcre_exec()</b> returned zero, indicating that it ran out of
space in <i>ovector</i>, the value passed as <i>stringcount</i> should be the
number of elements in the vector divided by three.
</P>
<P>
The functions <b>pcre_copy_substring()</b> and <b>pcre_get_substring()</b>
extract a single substring, whose number is given as <i>stringnumber</i>. A
value of zero extracts the substring that matched the entire pattern, whereas
higher values extract the captured substrings. For <b>pcre_copy_substring()</b>,
the string is placed in <i>buffer</i>, whose length is given by
<i>buffersize</i>, while for <b>pcre_get_substring()</b> a new block of memory is
obtained via <b>pcre_malloc</b>, and its address is returned via
<i>stringptr</i>. The yield of the function is the length of the string, not
including the terminating zero, or one of these error codes:
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_NOMEMORY (-6)
</pre>
The buffer was too small for <b>pcre_copy_substring()</b>, or the attempt to get
memory failed for <b>pcre_get_substring()</b>.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING (-7)
</pre>
There is no substring whose number is <i>stringnumber</i>.
</P>
<P>
The <b>pcre_get_substring_list()</b> function extracts all available substrings
and builds a list of pointers to them. All this is done in a single block of
memory that is obtained via <b>pcre_malloc</b>. The address of the memory block
is returned via <i>listptr</i>, 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 the error code
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_NOMEMORY (-6)
</pre>
if the attempt to get the memory block failed.
</P>
<P>
When any of these functions encounter a substring that is unset, which can
happen when capturing subpattern number <i>n+1</i> matches some part of the
subject, but subpattern <i>n</i> 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 <i>ovector</i>, which is negative for unset
substrings.
</P>
<P>
The two convenience functions <b>pcre_free_substring()</b> and
<b>pcre_free_substring_list()</b> can be used to free the memory returned by
a previous call of <b>pcre_get_substring()</b> or
<b>pcre_get_substring_list()</b>, respectively. They do nothing more than call
the function pointed to by <b>pcre_free</b>, 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 that cannot use
<b>pcre_free</b> directly; it is for these cases that the functions are
provided.
</P>
<br><a name="SEC16" href="#TOC1">EXTRACTING CAPTURED SUBSTRINGS BY NAME</a><br>
<P>
<b>int pcre_get_stringnumber(const pcre *<i>code</i>,</b>
<b>const char *<i>name</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_copy_named_substring(const pcre *<i>code</i>,</b>
<b>const char *<i>subject</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>stringcount</i>, const char *<i>stringname</i>,</b>
<b>char *<i>buffer</i>, int <i>buffersize</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
<b>int pcre_get_named_substring(const pcre *<i>code</i>,</b>
<b>const char *<i>subject</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>stringcount</i>, const char *<i>stringname</i>,</b>
<b>const char **<i>stringptr</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
To extract a substring by name, you first have to find associated number.
For example, for this pattern
<pre>
(a+)b(?<xxx>\d+)...
</pre>
the number of the subpattern called "xxx" is 2. If the name is known to be
unique (PCRE_DUPNAMES was not set), you can find the number from the name by
calling <b>pcre_get_stringnumber()</b>. The first argument is the compiled
pattern, and the second is the name. The yield of the function is the
subpattern number, or PCRE_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING (-7) if there is no subpattern of
that name.
</P>
<P>
Given the number, you can 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.
</P>
<P>
Most of the arguments of <b>pcre_copy_named_substring()</b> and
<b>pcre_get_named_substring()</b> are the same as those for the similarly named
functions that extract by number. As these are described in the previous
section, they are not re-described here. There are just two differences:
</P>
<P>
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.
</P>
<P>
These functions call <b>pcre_get_stringnumber()</b>, and if it succeeds, they
then call <b>pcre_copy_substring()</b> or <b>pcre_get_substring()</b>, as
appropriate. <b>NOTE:</b> If PCRE_DUPNAMES is set and there are duplicate names,
the behaviour may not be what you want (see the next section).
</P>
<P>
<b>Warning:</b> If the pattern uses the (?| feature to set up multiple
subpatterns with the same number, as described in the
<a href="pcrepattern.html#dupsubpatternnumber">section on duplicate subpattern numbers</a>
in the
<a href="pcrepattern.html"><b>pcrepattern</b></a>
page, you cannot use names to distinguish the different subpatterns, because
names are not included in the compiled code. The matching process uses only
numbers. For this reason, the use of different names for subpatterns of the
same number causes an error at compile time.
</P>
<br><a name="SEC17" href="#TOC1">DUPLICATE SUBPATTERN NAMES</a><br>
<P>
<b>int pcre_get_stringtable_entries(const pcre *<i>code</i>,</b>
<b>const char *<i>name</i>, char **<i>first</i>, char **<i>last</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
When a pattern is compiled with the PCRE_DUPNAMES option, names for subpatterns
are not required to be unique. (Duplicate names are always allowed for
subpatterns with the same number, created by using the (?| feature. Indeed, if
such subpatterns are named, they are required to use the same names.)
</P>
<P>
Normally, patterns with duplicate names are such that in any one match, only
one of the named subpatterns participates. An example is shown in the
<a href="pcrepattern.html"><b>pcrepattern</b></a>
documentation.
</P>
<P>
When duplicates are present, <b>pcre_copy_named_substring()</b> and
<b>pcre_get_named_substring()</b> return the first substring corresponding to
the given name that is set. If none are set, PCRE_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING (-7) is
returned; no data is returned. The <b>pcre_get_stringnumber()</b> function
returns one of the numbers that are associated with the name, but it is not
defined which it is.
</P>
<P>
If you want to get full details of all captured substrings for a given name,
you must use the <b>pcre_get_stringtable_entries()</b> function. The first
argument is the compiled pattern, and the second is the name. The third and
fourth are pointers to variables which are updated by the function. After it
has run, they point to the first and last entries in the name-to-number table
for the given name. The function itself returns the length of each entry, or
PCRE_ERROR_NOSUBSTRING (-7) if there are none. The format of the table is
described above in the section entitled <i>Information about a pattern</i>.
Given all the relevant entries for the name, you can extract each of their
numbers, and hence the captured data, if any.
</P>
<br><a name="SEC18" href="#TOC1">FINDING ALL POSSIBLE MATCHES</a><br>
<P>
The traditional matching function uses a similar algorithm to Perl, which stops
when it finds the first match, starting at a given point in the subject. If you
want to find all possible matches, or the longest possible match, consider
using the alternative matching function (see below) instead. If you cannot use
the alternative function, but still need to find all possible matches, you
can kludge it up by making use of the callout facility, which is described in
the
<a href="pcrecallout.html"><b>pcrecallout</b></a>
documentation.
</P>
<P>
What you have to do is to insert a callout right at the end of the pattern.
When your callout function is called, extract and save the current matched
substring. Then return 1, which forces <b>pcre_exec()</b> to backtrack and try
other alternatives. Ultimately, when it runs out of matches, <b>pcre_exec()</b>
will yield PCRE_ERROR_NOMATCH.
<a name="dfamatch"></a></P>
<br><a name="SEC19" href="#TOC1">MATCHING A PATTERN: THE ALTERNATIVE FUNCTION</a><br>
<P>
<b>int pcre_dfa_exec(const pcre *<i>code</i>, const pcre_extra *<i>extra</i>,</b>
<b>const char *<i>subject</i>, int <i>length</i>, int <i>startoffset</i>,</b>
<b>int <i>options</i>, int *<i>ovector</i>, int <i>ovecsize</i>,</b>
<b>int *<i>workspace</i>, int <i>wscount</i>);</b>
</P>
<P>
The function <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> is called to match a subject string against
a compiled pattern, using a matching algorithm that scans the subject string
just once, and does not backtrack. This has different characteristics to the
normal algorithm, and is not compatible with Perl. Some of the features of PCRE
patterns are not supported. Nevertheless, there are times when this kind of
matching can be useful. For a discussion of the two matching algorithms, and a
list of features that <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> does not support, see the
<a href="pcrematching.html"><b>pcrematching</b></a>
documentation.
</P>
<P>
The arguments for the <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> function are the same as for
<b>pcre_exec()</b>, plus two extras. The <i>ovector</i> argument is used in a
different way, and this is described below. The other common arguments are used
in the same way as for <b>pcre_exec()</b>, so their description is not repeated
here.
</P>
<P>
The two additional arguments provide workspace for the function. The workspace
vector should contain at least 20 elements. It is used for keeping track of
multiple paths through the pattern tree. More workspace will be needed for
patterns and subjects where there are a lot of potential matches.
</P>
<P>
Here is an example of a simple call to <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b>:
<pre>
int rc;
int ovector[10];
int wspace[20];
rc = pcre_dfa_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 of integers for substring information */
10, /* number of elements (NOT size in bytes) */
wspace, /* working space vector */
20); /* number of elements (NOT size in bytes) */
</PRE>
</P>
<br><b>
Option bits for <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b>
</b><br>
<P>
The unused bits of the <i>options</i> argument for <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> must be
zero. The only bits that may be set are PCRE_ANCHORED, PCRE_NEWLINE_<i>xxx</i>,
PCRE_NOTBOL, PCRE_NOTEOL, PCRE_NOTEMPTY, PCRE_NOTEMPTY_ATSTART,
PCRE_NO_UTF8_CHECK, PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD, PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT, PCRE_DFA_SHORTEST,
and PCRE_DFA_RESTART. All but the last four of these are exactly the same as
for <b>pcre_exec()</b>, so their description is not repeated here.
<pre>
PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD
PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT
</pre>
These have the same general effect as they do for <b>pcre_exec()</b>, but the
details are slightly different. When PCRE_PARTIAL_HARD is set for
<b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b>, it returns PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL if the end of the subject
is reached and there is still at least one matching possibility that requires
additional characters. This happens even if some complete matches have also
been found. When PCRE_PARTIAL_SOFT is set, the return code PCRE_ERROR_NOMATCH
is converted into PCRE_ERROR_PARTIAL if the end of the subject is reached,
there have been no complete matches, but there is still at least one matching
possibility. The portion of the string that was inspected when the longest
partial match was found is set as the first matching string in both cases.
<pre>
PCRE_DFA_SHORTEST
</pre>
Setting the PCRE_DFA_SHORTEST option causes the matching algorithm to stop as
soon as it has found one match. Because of the way the alternative algorithm
works, this is necessarily the shortest possible match at the first possible
matching point in the subject string.
<pre>
PCRE_DFA_RESTART
</pre>
When <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> returns a partial match, it is possible to call it
again, with additional subject characters, and have it continue with the same
match. The PCRE_DFA_RESTART option requests this action; when it is set, the
<i>workspace</i> and <i>wscount</i> options must reference the same vector as
before because data about the match so far is left in them after a partial
match. There is more discussion of this facility in the
<a href="pcrepartial.html"><b>pcrepartial</b></a>
documentation.
</P>
<br><b>
Successful returns from <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b>
</b><br>
<P>
When <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> succeeds, it may have matched more than one
substring in the subject. Note, however, that all the matches from one run of
the function start at the same point in the subject. The shorter matches are
all initial substrings of the longer matches. For example, if the pattern
<pre>
<.*>
</pre>
is matched against the string
<pre>
This is <something> <something else> <something further> no more
</pre>
the three matched strings are
<pre>
<something>
<something> <something else>
<something> <something else> <something further>
</pre>
On success, the yield of the function is a number greater than zero, which is
the number of matched substrings. The substrings themselves are returned in
<i>ovector</i>. Each string uses two elements; the first is the offset to the
start, and the second is the offset to the end. In fact, all the strings have
the same start offset. (Space could have been saved by giving this only once,
but it was decided to retain some compatibility with the way <b>pcre_exec()</b>
returns data, even though the meaning of the strings is different.)
</P>
<P>
The strings are returned in reverse order of length; that is, the longest
matching string is given first. If there were too many matches to fit into
<i>ovector</i>, the yield of the function is zero, and the vector is filled with
the longest matches.
</P>
<br><b>
Error returns from <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b>
</b><br>
<P>
The <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> function returns a negative number when it fails.
Many of the errors are the same as for <b>pcre_exec()</b>, and these are
described
<a href="#errorlist">above.</a>
There are in addition the following errors that are specific to
<b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b>:
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_DFA_UITEM (-16)
</pre>
This return is given if <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> encounters an item in the pattern
that it does not support, for instance, the use of \C or a back reference.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_DFA_UCOND (-17)
</pre>
This return is given if <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> encounters a condition item that
uses a back reference for the condition, or a test for recursion in a specific
group. These are not supported.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_DFA_UMLIMIT (-18)
</pre>
This return is given if <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> is called with an <i>extra</i>
block that contains a setting of the <i>match_limit</i> field. This is not
supported (it is meaningless).
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_DFA_WSSIZE (-19)
</pre>
This return is given if <b>pcre_dfa_exec()</b> runs out of space in the
<i>workspace</i> vector.
<pre>
PCRE_ERROR_DFA_RECURSE (-20)
</pre>
When a recursive subpattern is processed, the matching function calls itself
recursively, using private vectors for <i>ovector</i> and <i>workspace</i>. This
error is given if the output vector is not large enough. This should be
extremely rare, as a vector of size 1000 is used.
</P>
<br><a name="SEC20" href="#TOC1">SEE ALSO</a><br>
<P>
<b>pcrebuild</b>(3), <b>pcrecallout</b>(3), <b>pcrecpp(3)</b>(3),
<b>pcrematching</b>(3), <b>pcrepartial</b>(3), <b>pcreposix</b>(3),
<b>pcreprecompile</b>(3), <b>pcresample</b>(3), <b>pcrestack</b>(3).
</P>
<br><a name="SEC21" href="#TOC1">AUTHOR</a><br>
<P>
Philip Hazel
<br>
University Computing Service
<br>
Cambridge CB2 3QH, England.
<br>
</P>
<br><a name="SEC22" href="#TOC1">REVISION</a><br>
<P>
Last updated: 03 October 2009
<br>
Copyright © 1997-2009 University of Cambridge.
<br>
<p>
Return to the <a href="index.html">PCRE index page</a>.
</p>